Home Movies

Roundtable Interview With Director Derek Cianfrance On The Place Beyond The Pines

Director Derek Cianfrance doesn't quite have a mainstream following yet, but this budding talent's debut film Blue Valentine instantly solidified his "indie-cred" among more die-hard film fans. The raw, emotional performances he was able to draw out of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams put a spotlight on his spectacular craftsmanship, and his gritty delivery promoted uniqueness and individuality in a way that got Blue Valentine lovers extremely excited for his next feature, The Place Beyond The Pines.

Recommended Videos

“So what convinced him?”

Derek Cianfrance: I told him I wasn’t making the movie without him. I told him he was born to play this part. And no, I wouldn’t have done the movie without him.

We then asked what he re-wrote about the character after meeting Bradley:

Derek Cianfrance: It just got deeper. When I met Bradley, all of a sudden I related to this thing in him no one can see because you’re successful, you’re on the cover of People Magazine, but to me when I go and see movies, I see this proliferation of perfection on screen. Often times it’s perfect looking people, game show looking teeth, they’re so damn charming, they know how to say everything perfectly, they know what they want, and there’s always a nice resolution at the end. Often times I’m so lonely at the end of movies, I wonder “Where do I fit in?” I don’t see the world in black and white, I see it in grey.

I felt like Bradley was the perfect example of someone only being used for perfection, for one thing, almost as a shell. When I met him as a man, he was not, he was a human being like me, and I wanted to make him a human being on-screen, and I’m always trying to fill my movies with conflicted people. There are always people that are trying to avoid their destiny, or their legacy, but by avoiding it, the inevitably just crash into it.

Apparently Derek will be appearing in his wife Shannon Plumb’s movie Towheads when it’s released, which he briefly talked about:

Derek Cianfrance: You actually won’t see me, because she chose to never show my face in the movie, even though I said “Don’t you want to sell some tickets?!” [Laughs] It’s just my voice, or my pants, or I’m out of focus, maybe even behind a cereal box or something?

We then asked what Derek has coming up next:

Derek Cianfrance: I wrote a series for HBO called Muscle, based on this guy Sam Fussell’s autobiography. I’m waiting for it to be greenlit. I feel like I’m a ship in HBO’s port right now, and there’s like 200 ships there all waiting, but I’m waiting for them to give me a budget.

Cinematically I’m writing a number of things. I actually wrote a script with my wife about child birth I’m working on, I have a few others, and I’m actually reading a bunch, but it’s hard for me to find something. Out of the three scripts I read last week, in two of them the woman was a prostitute, and there’s always these rape scenes I keep reading. Yeah, they’re offering me money on these movies, but not for $5 million will I rape someone on the screen, or even for any amount. Even if it works for the story. I’m not into putting those images into the world.

Finishing up, we mentioned a scene Eva Mendes mentioned being cut where she gives young Dane DeHaan some tough love, and we asked why Derek decided to cut it:

Derek Cianfrance: My shooting script was 158 pages, and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment said if I got it down to 120, I could have the money to make the movie. So I found the shrink font button, and extended the margins, and no one ever caught on, they just said “Good job!” Then I was six months into editing and I had a three and a half hour movie on my hands, and I was trying to find the shrink font button in the editing room, but I couldn’t. I did come up with an equation where if I took one frame out for every twenty four frames, I could have a twenty three frame a second movie, but it only took out seven and a half minutes and it looked weird, so I had to make other cuts.

To me writing is like dreaming, shooting is like living, and editing is like murder. You have all these great gifts you’re given from actors, and all these performances, but you have to cut things out. I’ve even had to cut my Mom out of a movie once, it’s ruthless, I hate it. She still speaks to me, but I have friends who don’t.

You’ll see most of the cut stuff on the DVD though. There’s scenes with Ryan and Ben where they’re coming up with how much they’re going to share, what’s their cut going to be, and I told Ryan “Don’t go below 90/10” and I told Ben “Don’t go above 50/50,” so we have take after take of them saying “90/10, no 50/50,” and it’s rather hilarious. It just goes on an on. In the movie it just doesn’t fit though.

Editing is so crucial because it’s sculpture, you take away things and it reveals a shape. That moment with Eva slapping her son, even though you don’t see that, when you get to the hospital it’s already taken care of, it’s in their performance. I’m very into the intangibles of filmmaking, all these things find their way in there in some way.

I’d like to thank Derek for taking the time for this interview, and be sure to catch The Place Beyond The Pines when it opens March 29th!